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Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

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Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#41

Post by hirako2000 »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #10
vaylian wrote: post #5

What is the best way to let these greedy bastards know that we disagree with their conduct? Not buying records will only lead to them wrongfully claiming that they "lost revenue due to piracy".

How? Set up your own record label and implement your wish list of better terms. If you're reading hacker news, there's a good chance you can do most of the coding for free/stock/spec. Then you can be like totally cool about piracy and drink all of the kool aid about how piracy is just a different form of promotion. My guess is that you'll come to the same conclusion as me: piracy destroys marketplaces. It forces the…

A couple of fallacies in there.

Distributors have

- bended creative work property laws/precedents to maximise profits.

- Been using marketing as barrier of entry.

- many times used anti competitive practices.

Paying consumers are not subsidising free riders. Given zero or an infinity of pirates the ticket price woụld not change. An effective anti piracy solution doesn't imply pirates would convert into paying consumers, some would of course, and ticket prices would most likely increase rather than decrease. Dubious parallel and nobody is forced. Taxes are forced subsidies. Aside those that's business models and market response.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#42

Post by cscurmudgeon »

satao wrote: post #12
vaylian wrote: post #5

What is the best way to let these greedy bastards know that we disagree with their conduct? Not buying records will only lead to them wrongfully claiming that they "lost revenue due to piracy".

Stop voting in capitalistic assholes who value intelectual and property rights over everything else.

In a true free market, there won’t be govt enforcement of IP.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#43

Post by pessimizer »

I like this case. It's about recordings that are 70 years old or more, the vast majority are out of print, and the rest are often precariously in print.

If I'm reading correctly, the silly nature of the claim that

> [...] of the 2,749 recordings listed in the complaint, all but a “small sample” are already available to stream or download from licensed online platforms so they “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”

when the 2,749 recordings have been cherry-picked from

> [...] more than 400,000 works [...]

is pretty much an attack on their own claims that

> [...] to retain, restore and redistribute content that they believe should never be lost to history [...is...] nothing but a “smokescreen” to hide what amounts to IA offering “free and unlimited access to music for everyone,” regardless of copyright.

Not to mention that the IA constantly looking for copyrighted works uploaded that are not part of the "Great 78 Project" and reducing them to 30 second previews.

Prevailing on this would be a good thing. IA needs a win, even though it doesn't need to be paying to defend itself against another lawsuit. This is obviously vexatious. They're not really concerned with 78s. They're hoping to bankrupt IA with legal expenses, and/or they think that they have the fix in at a particular venue that they think they can steer the case to.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#44

Post by kirksan »

ghaff wrote: post #23
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #13

So the internet archive is knowing distributing media still under copyright? Is this not a slam dunk win for the record labels? Sounds like the internet archive officially made recordings available for download.

The Internet Archive (including the Wayback Machine) basically exists in a legal Gray area (to be generous) that has mostly depended on not doing things (or undoing things) that caught someone's attention who was willing to actually take some action about it. For the most part, the IA doesn't have any more special status than you or I if we were to mirror someone's website or create a comic strip museum. A lot of wha…

The IA has been skating on thin ice for a long time. They’ve archived a ton of content I generated over the years, most of it copyrighted. In my case I don’t care, I actually appreciate it since I didn’t keep archives as well as I should and occasionally use IA to find my own stuff. Also, my content is worth approximately 25¢. Others are not so forgiving.

What we really need are updated copyright laws that allow for research and preservation. However, people have been calling for updated laws for decades, but powerful copyright holders have stood in the way, so don’t hold your breath.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#46

Post by rvba »

HenryBemis wrote: post #31
ghastmaster wrote: post #6

This really scares me. The wayback machine is a treasure. I don't know what will happen to it if these cases succeed.

Imagine a mixture of 1984: Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. On the specifics of the lawsuit.. well if the law us bad, then change the law. But not following the law is not nice.

Tbh that's how cliques on wikipedia work.

There are cases when 2 admins "guard" an article and no user can change them. Worst is that wikimedia foundation takes tens of millions and doesnt even bother to spend anything to defend wikipedia from that.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#47

Post by ghaff »

gumby wrote: post #38
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts have ruled that merely executing an exe file is itself an act of copyright infringment, because the OS copies the contents into RAM. That's how deep it goes. The reason no users are violating copyright when running software normally is because of a special exception for software in the Copyright Act.

I think a lot of that has since gone away. I remember the battles around '2000 when the record industry tried to get paid for each instance when parts of the music files were buffered (because they were "copies"). They weren't laughed out of court. These days I think they would.

IANAL, but I've written a bit about copyright and had it reviewed by a very good IP lawyer. There was at one point some controversy about this point--especially in the context of computer software licensing. But, as I understand it, current case law allows copying where it's necessary to functionally make use of a copyrighted piece of work.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#49

Post by kmeisthax »

satao wrote: post #12
vaylian wrote: post #5

What is the best way to let these greedy bastards know that we disagree with their conduct? Not buying records will only lead to them wrongfully claiming that they "lost revenue due to piracy".

Stop voting in capitalistic assholes who value intelectual and property rights over everything else.

Unfortunately you can't vote None of the Above :/

Support among the US political class for copyright and patent law runs so deep that the main argument for untangling our economy from China's is not "they undercut US labor" or "they manipulate their currency" but "they steal our IP". An interesting choice of words, because that's an exclusive 'we'[0]. US voters have little need for copyrights and patents beyond ensuring that creative works get made. But the US political class is utterly dependent on their continued existence.

BTW, this even extends to Trumpism. Trump was very vocal about China stealing "our IP." The US economy is structured such that you cannot become rich without owning copyrights, patents, oil fields, or real estate. Everything else will be thrown into the abyss of partial post-scarcity.

[0] In some languages (not English) there's an inclusive 'we' and an exclusive 'we'. The latter would be used with the same implication as, say, "We've won the lottery - except for you."

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#50

Post by raincole »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #42
satao wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop voting in capitalistic assholes who value intelectual and property rights over everything else.

In a true free market, there won’t be govt enforcement of IP.

In a true free market we'll be hiring militias to protect our properties. Or more likely, be hired as one.
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